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excerpts : from THE BAKER'S DAUGHTER by Joanna Ruocco The baker's daughter is small. If there were children in the town, they would be smaller than the baker's daughter, at least for a while, but there are no children in the town. There is a store in the town. The store manager manages the store. The store manager is a mother. The store manager mothers a stillborn. The legs of the stillborn have not separated. The store manager would like to know if the stillborn is a son or a daughter, but the legs have not separated. To know, the store manager would need to cut the legs apart. The store manager would need to make a cut & the cut would make the stillborn a daughter. The store manager would prefer to have a son. If the store manager cuts the legs apart, the store manager will have a daughter. The store manager does not cut the legs apart. It must be a son. The store manager hopes it is a son. The only daughter in the town is the baker's daughter. The baker's daughter is a whore. The store manager's stillborn is smaller than the baker's daughter, that is, shorter from crown to heel, but the stillborn is rounder & softer than the baker's daughter. The store manager wipes the stillborn with cotton-balls. The store manager has soaked the cotton-balls in alcohol. The store manager wipes gently but pieces tear from the surface of the stillborn. "My son," says the store manager. Mothers name their sons. The stillborn is named the Teacup Whale. The name came to the store manager just as the store manager despaired of ever finding a name for the stillborn. The store manager put the stillborn on a salver in the middle of the table & poured tea into two gold-rimmed cups. The tea fumed & the store manager switched off the electric light. The salver & the kettle & the plates & the cups all belong to the store. Every morning, the store manager takes the items, clean & dry, down the stairs & puts them back on the shelves. The store manager turns around the sign in the window. At twelve o'clock, the store manager slides a comb from its plastic & combs the scant hairs on the stillborn. The store manager wonders if whales in the sea have scant hairs. Whales have nostrils. The store manager's crooked nostrils contain scant, dark hairs & so might the nostrils of whales. When the baker's daughter leaves the bakery, she wanders in the churchyard. There are not many stones in the churchyard. Vandals have entered the churchyard & taken the stones. No one remembers which stones the vandals took, what the stones said, or how many of the stones were taken. The town is not populous, but it is very old. There should be more stones. Vandals must have taken stones from the churchyard. Years ago, stonecutters quarried limestone & built the church. The stonecutters lived in a settlement along the river. The stonecutters bled their game too close to the river, & they penned their pigs too close to the river, & they did not care at all about the illnesses the river carried to the town. The stonecutters quarried limestone for the church & that is all the good they did. The stonecutters' descendants, the vandals, have taken many of the stones from the churchyard. Slowly, the vandals will undo the little good done by the stonecutters. from BLACK KIDS IN LEMON TREES by Shane Jones 001: Looking over the edge of a cloud, I can see two people standing at opposite ends holding a giant banner. The banner reads: ALL YOU COPS ARE IN THE CLOUDS. 002: When we first found ourselves stuck in the clouds we just stood there in our uniforms, ready hands on guns. Someone said, we’re stuck in the clouds. I looked around & counted 200 cops including myself. Including you, holding my lucky gun hand. 003: I remember being on the ground. I remember falling asleep. I remember telling you that we are more than uniforms. Then your cop hat blowing back. Then, in the clouds. Then, the overwhelming desire to pull my gun trigger, swing my club. Our handcuffs are the stitching between clouds. 004: I don’t know what we’re doing up here but down there buildings are on fire. When I lie down on a cloud to look over the edge, I feel the heat burning a hole through my stomach. My back is cold. 005:
We shoot our guns wildly into the face of the sun. If a bird cuts through a cloud we beat it with our clubs. Our dark blue uniforms, the swinging of steel ringed clubs in the strange, cloud-high sunlight. 006: We don’t know what we’re doing up here when everything is going wrong down there. All us cops stuck in the clouds. Some jump off to try & save the world. Us others, we take turns shooting at each other from the far side of clouds. We hold hands & have evening orgies where we lick dicks & hips. An entire cloud filled with the tearing open of cop uniforms. All you see is naked limbs sticking up from cloud. from THEY by Brian Evenson The first time S. came to see Rauch, it wasn't S. at all. It was, rather, an image of S. that, after Rauch had allowed his eyeball to be electronically palpated, began to speak. "As you know—" it began. —but Rauch didn't know. Let me back up. There had been a time S. came to see Rauch before that, but Rauch couldn't remember it. He'd been dead for a while shortly after that meeting with S. A few events, that included, had been lost. Once he was alive again, it slowly became evident that a stretch of time prior to his death was missing. That's normal, they claimed. Nothing to worry about. Easily corrected. For a nominal fee, they assembled a series of images to allow him to fill the gap. In the air before him, a flattened version of himself spoke to a flattened second man, bald, pale skin, unhealthily thin, who referred to himself by something that started with S. The name was garbled somehow. "What I want," this man was saying, "is for you to investigate my death." Rauch watched flat Rauch take out a notebook & a pen. "How often have you died?" he asked. "& which death?" "No," flat S. said. "When it happens again. The next time. From now on. Every time I die." reviews / interviews : | |